Memoir

Welcome to ORNAMENTAL ILLNESSES…

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Update: March 2019…

When I started this endeavor back in ‘013, it was a “writing blog devoted to this bipolar guy’s journey…” 

It’s still a writing blog because words and sentences and an over-reliance on ill-timed alliteration. A lot of keywords will still reference mental illness, and I’m not taking anything down.

 However, I am no longer operating under the assumption that I’m bipolar. Or bipolar II. Or borderline. Or unipolarly, majorly depressed, or psychotic. Some diagnoses had more staying power. Borderline didn’t last long because I refused to do the workbook. The bipolars have been suggested on and off since 1985 when I mentioned “sometimes I’m up, though.” Whatever it was, my brain was diseased.2567918_0

And a diseased brain needs drugs. My world soon began to resemble an early Damian Hirst installation done with way too many physicians’ samples.

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Pharmacy by Damian Hirst, 1992.

And on a small dais in the center of the room was me doing a long form performance art piece. Fancy crowds carrying plates of tiny appetizers gawk in amazement as I enact side effects in real time. Diarrhea painting! The impotence/priapism lotto! Profuse sweating! More diarrhea! And a stunning display of weight gain!

But like all performance art everywhere, this installation just peters out. The crowd slowly disperses as the the piece just sorta levels out. The highs and lows are gone. Even the diarrhea gets to be old hat. Soon it’s just a fat guy laying there, no visible emotion. Simple maintenance is never interesting. Maybe someone will buy a fridge magnet on their way out. Maybe not. Who cares?

In 2015, I had to move back to my hometown of Columbus because I was just winding down to nothing. Friends were peeling off because I was somehow both boring and suicidal. Thank god for the cat.

In Columbus I began working with a therapist who wanted me to view my brain in a different way. Instead of a diseased, structurally normal brain, maybe my brain is perfectly healthy, just odd?

As I understand it, I don’t have a bouncer. Every little bit of information is allowed in, each one of the utmost importance. Basically, I notice everything. Every sound. Every song. Every emotion. Every instance of discordant feng shui. Every word choice in every text from every acquaintance.

(He says I’m profoundly ADHD and could even be on a spectrum if that made me happy. ‘The Spectrum’ I asked. No, but it’s adjacent and somewhat overlapping. If two spectra overlap, aren’t they the same spectrum? This debate took up the rest of the hour.)

It all just pings around, and sometimes it overwhelms me. The therapist has me reconsidering many of the instances of worrying behavior that got me on the pills. Perhaps they were not DSM symptoms; instead, could they be overreactions to overstimulation?

So, what did I have to lose? Laying there, being chemically warehoused? In June of 2017, I quit the seven different psych meds I was on cold-turkey. Yes, I know that was stupid and the rollercoaster coming down was not fun, but I was very worried they would talk me out of pursuing a new path. Also, I was getting the feeling that I was just being seen as a revenue stream. (After all, why couldn’t I ever renew my scrips without seeing the psychiatrist every single month?)

And I’m sick of thinking of myself as diseased. Odd is not a disease.

It took around 18 months for me to feel my old brain coming back. I’m talking WAY too much again, sometimes even to people. I’ve lost 35 pounds. I tell myself colors are brighter. At the gym, I practice smiling (It hurts.) There are patterns again. All the birdsong. I’m itchy for stuff.

I don’t know where this will all lead, and I honestly have no idea what the hell I’m doing. It’s like moving thru an unfamiliar corridor with those automatic lights that only turn on when you’re underneath them.

And I’m running up against confusion, stigma, ageism. It’s always amusing/saddening when a supposedly inclusive space or person “others” you if you have some grey or drop a Kajagoogoo reference. Either I’m held up as everything that’s wrong with western civilization, or, if I do something surprisingly not-awful, I’m like a bear in a tutu riding a unicycle to them. Isn’t it amazing that he’s not awful?!?

I’m getting “that look” again. Good. I missed it.

I can’t control others’ reactions. You’d think with my brain being all odd and everything, I’d be able to control other people. But, it’s their thing. All I can do is plug ahead, choosing engagement over avoidance.

Now that I can, I just have to keep moving. 

I’m writing about that.

Shutting up about Dylan McDickBob

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Another installment in the series “Several really kind of gay things I did before I was really kind of gay.”

 

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During my brief stint in LA, I worked several jobs that fell under the heading “Production Assistant.” The particulars of each assignment may have varied, but there were a few constant rules:

  • Everything is an emergency.
  • The 405 is never your best option. Take Sepulveda. Are you an idiot?
  • A bialy is not just a “bagel without a hole.”
  • Shut up!

This last one was the most important. I learned that on my first paying gig, an unsuccessful game show pilot for FOX. I was bialy-ing up the conference room when a writer, who was from Canada, had an idea that involved the hockey concept of a “hat trick.” The producer went around the room asking if anyone knew what the eff a hat trick was. He asked me directly, “You’re who’d be watching this show. What’s a hat trick?”

“Ummm… it’s like a three-peat, right?”

“Yeah, three-peat. That actually makes sense,” nodded the producer.

I went back to arranging bialys in a pleasing manner. About 45 minutes later, the Canadian writer cornered me in the bathroom with about $40 worth of something decidedly not-Canadian clinging to his nose hairs. He got six inches from my face. “Are you a writer?” he clipped. Continue reading →

Bastard raccoons make me misinterpret romanticism and question my relationship with nature.

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I live in the middle of Brooklyn. I don’t have much exposure to nature. In my part of Park Slope, the emphasis is more on the Slope aspect. Sometimes, it does a bit Park-y. After all, I did get a new pair of street trees –with first-person nametags –to replace the healthy one The Department of Environmental Protection cut down by mistake instead of pruning. Last week, the Business Improvement District fenced them in for all our safety lest they attract a bad crowd of fauna.

And I see beauty every time I look out the window:

beautycvs

I have what you would call a “romantic” view of nature. It’s nice and all. Y’know, trees! But I prefer it with a nice footpath and maybe a folly or a ruin somewhere in a vista. The rest of it can just stay in the carefully constructed wilderness of its choice. The frontier closed in 1890, and that was a good thing… nature amok wants me dead.

I blame the raccoons. Continue reading →

Scooby Doo and a Mummy, Too… They’ve stolen Casey Kasem’s corpse. I am upset.

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Three excerpts from CNN.com this morning:

  • Candace Corkum at the Gaffney Funeral Home in Tacoma, Washington, confirmed that the facility had been in possession of Casey Kasem’s body, but said that it was no longer in their care.
  • “We are not surprised,” Kerri Kasem[daughter] told to CNN. “We expected something like this to happen.”
  • Meanwhile, Jean Kasem [stepmother, the former Loretta Tortelli] denies that her late husband’s body is missing. “It’s not,” she told CNN.

Yesterday, I was sitting in my living room with a couple of friends drinking cheap pink champagne –like one does –and listening to a Dutch 12” of Wang Chung’s “Dance Hall Days.” Greg and Jill were appropriately horrified by all the rap breakdowns that had been added. “This is from that time when everybody can rap,” remarked Greg, saying the last three words like one says “everybody gets a trophy!” There were also snack chips. As we were going to see the Municipal Fireworks For No Apparent Reason down at Coney later on, Jill brought up the rooftop party on the Fourth where we watched the NYC fireworks. There was NO MUSIC at this party. We all agreed that that was horrifying beyond anything Wang Chung could do to pad a song.

But there are people that don’t need music. Across the BQE from the party was this completely, no discussion, kick-ass, albeit misspelled, piece of graffiti:

womp

“We think it has something to do with WMD’s,” said another guest, approximately my age, as she dug into her couscous salad. “There it is!” I hip-hopped with horribly-appropriated arm movements. Nothing. No recognition whatsoever. I wanted to scream, “It was the #2 song of 1993!”

“I’m not a music person.”

I just don’t understand how people cannot enjoy music on the same level as I do. This is not like how I don’t get how some people don’t enjoy Diet Coke or my cat; this is like someone saying they’re not a “weather person.” I would hazard I spend much more time with music than I do with weather. If there’s not music on, I gotta listen to my thoughts, and no one wants those rap breakdowns. Greg took a sip of his champagne and said, “We’re just music geeks.” I thought for a second. “Y’know, I wouldn’t say I’m a music ‘geek;’ I would say I’m more of a ‘chart nerd.’” Continue reading →

Pride Thought #1: Puppy play, or I finally identify with someone’s fetish…

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After every Pride Fortnight, I spend a good chunk of the next week trying to figure out what it all meant.

Folsom Sunday, approx. 2pm

pridedogAs it is with any event where the gays can drink outside, the Folsom East Street Festival was harness to jock with folks celebrating their hard-won individuality in this particular area of their lives. I am somewhat of an outsider here. I have never been one for wearing clothes during sex. I figure I so rarely get to touch another human being, it seems a shame to place a complicated system of buckles and pulleys, zippers and roleplay between me and whatever poor sap I’ve driven to ecstasy with my stammering. And don’t get me started on the notion of constraint; as soon as someone comes up with a fetish involving loose caftans, I’m there. Until then, I need room to twirl. Continue reading →

Five things my dad found amusing (but few others probably did)

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ONE…

Some of my earliest memories are of my dad telling me “stories” to get me to stop fussing and go to sleep. “There was a little boy once who was walking through a really creepy forest,” he would say, leaning forward. Do you know what his name was?”

“What?”

“Chris.”

“Oh no, is it me?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that it’s a little boy named Chris, and he’s walking through a scary forest. He knows he’s supposed to be quiet or the monster will eat him.”

“Eat him!?”

“Shhh…” He would put his index finger to his mouth and cast a wary glance over to the closet door. Then he would chuckle.

TWO…

My sister, Erin, has always been the visual artist of the family. I have tons of memories of her working diligently at the coffee table on wonderful profiles of faces. Then whenever she was close to finishing, Dad would get up from his Dad Chair, walk over to the coffee table, and ask heartily “Do you know what this drawing needs?” Erin would sigh and push the paper ever so slightly away from her. I would lean in, knowing what came next. Dad then would pick up Erin’s pencil and proceed to draw boogers coming out of her subjects’ noses.

THREE…

One day when I was about seven he came home from work with a mysterious wooden box that he had carried with him on the Long Island Rail Road. It was very sturdily built. The sides and the bottom were completely sealed. One half of the top was an equally sturdy hinged lid; the other half consisted of a kind of chicken wire, stronger than the normal type. We could see the tip of a small bushy tail sticking out of a mouse hole that separated the two halves.

The outside of the box was covered with a stenciled warning: BEWARE. LIVE INDIA MONGOOSE. THE SNAKE EATER.

The set also consisted of a two-foot long pointy stick.

Dad gathered us around (but had us keep a “safe” distance), picked up the stick, and began to prod at the bushy tail. He could barely contain his glee as he told us of the wonders of the LIVE INDIA MONGOOSE.

This was all misdirection as the lid was spring-loaded. When he was sure we were all focused on what must have been a very angry LIVE INDIA MONGOOSE, he undid a hook-and-eye latch, and the lid flew open towards us. Turns out the bushy tail was hanging loosely off a small nail on the inside of the lid. The LIVE INDIA MONGOOSE lunged towards us, no doubt ravenous for blood after such a vigorous poking by a man who had had a cocktail or two on the train. My sisters and I screamed and bounced up and down. My mom let out an exasperated “Ron!”

For the next few years, every visitor to the house was led down to the basement to meet the LIVE INDIA MONGOOSE.

FOUR…

When I was little, Saturday nights on CBS were magical. All in the Family led into M*A*S*H* led into The Mary Tyler Moore Show led into The Bob Newhart Show led into The Carol Burnett Show. It was three hours of solid family entertainment –sophisticated humor for the adults and enough pratfalls and wordplay to keep the kids happy. But Dad’s favorite half-hour was The Bob Newhart Show.

It was when he could torment me with his Suzanne Pleshette conspiracy theory. “Did you know Suzanne Pleshette has a wooden leg?

“No way! She walks normally.”

“Why do you think she’s always wearing pantsuits?”

FIVE…

This:

twopolesIt’s “two Poles walking abreast.” Get it?

(Please don’t ask why they’re Poles.)

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

 

Finally got something published not by me… Round-Up Zine Pride Issue

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“The Round Up Writer’s Zine is a fresh space devoted to trangressive pieces, dark humor and works laced in sarcasm. In fact we are partisan to works that are edgy and/or possibly offensive.” –from their submission rules.

http://www.roundupzine.com/

cover_v_1_3.5RSMy story “March” can be found on page four of this odd .pdf format they’ve got.  If you enjoy it, share, like, shout it from the mansards!

Happy Pride.

Love and Utopia over a 3-compartment sink at Sister’s Chicken and Biscuits

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People remark how scent is the most powerful tool for recovering memories. However, for me it’s stupid three-minute pop songs.

My friend Martin Joseph Quinn remarked today that listening to Todd Rundgren early in the morning gets Todd Rundgren stuck in one’s head all day.  I, being the wit I am, made a quip about it just made me want to bang on a drum all day.  Because that’s the title of a Todd Rundgren song.  An especially irritating late-period Todd Rundgren song, so it’s cute that I did that. I could go to bed because, face it, I don’t really listen much to Todd Rundgren, much less contemplate my place in the Rundgren-verse. My every-day working knowledge of Rundgren consists of the aforementioned song, another one called “Hello, It’s Me,” and the party trivia nugget that, until the age of eight, Liv Tyler thought he was her father.

Then I remembered that I first asked a girl out as the result of a Todd Rundgren song, “Hammer in My Heart.” Now I have to think about Todd Rundgren. Continue reading →

I DISCOVER PORNOGRAPHY [Part one of the series “Several Really Kinda Gay Things I Did Before I Was Really Kinda Gay”]

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bonnielargecensored

Patrick’s dad was a bit younger than mine, and, therefore, cooler. He swam and wore turtlenecks. On TV you could tell someone older was trying to connect with the youth if they wore a turtleneck. It was appreciated. Another way he tried to curry favor was by “hiding” issues of Playboy in the basement. It was clear that they were being hidden from his wife, but still needed to be readily accessible. They were recent issues, not a collection from his bachelor days.

But did he really think he could hide them from kids who knew every inch of that basement? We spent endless hours down there riding bikes in a tight circle at breakneck speed, conjuring up Bloody Lincoln apparitions, and playing “house” with his older sister, Kathleen. All he did was put them under a pile of beach blankets. He had to have known that we would see the pile of blankets was three inches higher. He might as well have put them into Patrick’s Christmas stocking or taken us to a titty bar.

However, keeping with the elaborate kabuki that this was somehow taboo, we decided to grab just one issue and take it to a corner of the basement where we could not be seen from the stairs. We had to choose pretty much at random which issue to take as Playboy at the time had “sophisticated” cover art that hinted more at turtlenecks than areolas. We knelt on wintering patio cushions, an issue from the previous March before us. We looked at each other and drew our breaths. We were about to receive sacred knowledge. We opened right to the centerfold.

She looked like a Breck Girl. Continue reading →